What I Believe

I believe that the evangelical position on the fundamental doctrines of the faith is the only valid expression of Christianity.
I believe in the Trinity, the eternal Sonship of Christ, the true divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, the blood atonement, literal heaven and hell, literal eternal salvation and eternal damnation, salvation by faith alone, the necessity of the new birth, the verbal-plenary inspiration of Scripture, the historicity and accuracy of the entire Old Testament as well as the New Testament, and the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice.

I believe in literal Bible translations.
I believe that literal translations alone accurately translate the revelation of God in the Bible, and that they alone translate in harmony with verbal, plenary inspiration. Paraphrases and dynamic equivalents may occasionally be of help, but as a whole they are marred by a loss of clarity and accuracy and by the incorporation of interpretation into the translation.

I believe that prophecy is intended to be understood literally.
I believe that there will be seven years of tribulation at the end of the age, that these years will be characterized by the world-dictatorship of the antichrist and devastating judgments upon the world, that the Lord will remove his church from the Earth prior to the tribulation, that the Lord will turn back to Israel (yet under the law) after the removal of the church to bring the nation into the blessings of the New Covenant, that Israel can only receive her national promises under the auspices of the New Covenant, that the Lord will personally return at the end of the tribulation to destroy the antichrist and establish his kingdom upon the earth, that the present world will be as thoroughly destroyed by the judgments associated with the coming of the Lord as the former world was destroyed by the flood in the days of Noah, and that the blessings of the kingdom will be as amazing as the preparatory judgments were awful.

I believe that the message of redemption in the Bible should be taken at face value.
I believe that God has no secret will in redemption which contrasts with the plain statements of the Bible taken at face value, that God truly does wish that none should perish, that his gracious offer of salvation is truly intended for and offered to the entire world, that Christ truly died for the sins of the entire world, that his atonement is sufficient for the entire human race but efficient only to those who believe, that while the entire race is undeniably depraved, yet depravity does not imply or necessitate the inability of men to respond with faith to God’s invitation in the gospel, that election is not unconditional but based on faith, that grace can be resisted, and that sovereignty does not imply or necessitate determinism.

I believe that the Bible teaches salvation is by faith alone.
I further believe that faith must be guarded against the error of antinomianism (easy-believism), that faith that bears no fruit (given time and opportunity) is not faith but religious delusion, that God answers every instance of faith with the regeneration of the heart by His Word and Spirit, and that this new birth permanently changes men, placing them on the path of progressive sanctification where their minds are progressively renewed and they are progressively conformed to the image of Christ.

I believe in the eternal security of the believer.
I further believe that eternal security is rooted in both regeneration and justification, that the believer is born-again by the eternal Word and the eternal Spirit (implying an eternal nature that cannot be extinguished), that on the basis of this eternal regeneration the believer shall never perish (never be lost), that the new birth renders the believer unable to continue in his old ways of sin (and unable to maintain a path of backsliding if he falls), that the believer is sealed with the Holy Spirit as a promise that he will participate in the resurrection of the righteous, that the believer has a high priest in heaven who is able to save to the uttermost, and that Christ’s blood — of infinite value — is more than sufficient to cover his sins.

I believe that the church has one commission: to go into all the world and preach the gospel, baptizing those who believe in the name of Jesus, and teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded.
I further believe that the church has no commission to clean up the world or fix it’s problems, that her commission, on the contrary, is to call men out of the world and leave the world in its defilement, that it is a delusion to believe that the world’s problems can be fixed prior to the devil being bound at the second coming of the Lord, that it is a waste of the Lord’s resources (time, money, and heart) for believers to embrace the social-gospel (a commission to clean or fix the world), and that the only valid place for social efforts is supplemental to the gospel.

I believe that the church has an obligation to be separated from the world and from apostasy.
I believe that Christians should keep themselves from the defilements and entanglements of the world, and from apostasy in the church, i.e. errors that undermine the authority of Scripture, the integrity of the gospel, the Jesus of the Bible, and the fundamental doctrines of the faith.

I believe that the early chapters of Genesis are literal history.
I believe that the creation account at the beginning of the Bible is to be understood as six literal days, that rejecting the early chapters as actual history undermines the authority of Scripture, that rejecting the creation account as literal history undermines the historicity of the fall of man which in turn undermines the gospel, and that Big Bang cosmology is intrinsically and irreconcilably contrary to the biblical account of creation. Let God be true and every man a liar.

Eyes wide open, brain engaged, heart on fire.

Soothkeep

Soothkeep is a website dedicated to the relentless pursuit of truth. It is written and updated by Lee W. Brainard.

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Lee W. Brainard

Lee W. Brainard is a Bible teacher and author. His passions include the original languages (Greek and Hebrew), prophecy, and apologetics (ancient history, catastrophism, and cosmology). This bookworm also enjoys coffee, dark chocolate, mountains, mountain climbing, backpacking, northern lights, and stars. He is married to Nita Brainard and has four children, all married.